Monday, June 22, 2009

Father's Day

[illustration: my study's window]by J J Cohen

Something I share with my own dad: annoyance at the fact that Father's Day implies that every father must be obsessed by (1) golf; (2) fishing; (3) neckties; and (4) coffee mugs. That's the father's day gamut as far as I can tell ... and so it is tough to find a card that doesn't have a golf ball whizzing by or a fly fisher depicted on a lonely river.Don't dads ever ride bikes, run, read books, work as professors at universities?

So imagine my happiness that my kids actually located an appropriate card for me this year. No, not a Deleuzian "You're the most rhizomatic pa around!" card. Not a Foucaultian panopticon card that says "I'm always watching you, father." And not a Lacan-inspired Hallmark that announces "You are my Big Other, pops."

This year I got a medieval card. The cover shows a knight with horse by some water (despite the fluvial temptation, he is NOT fishing). "Dang!" he says, "Where did I put that stupid thing?" In the next section he yells over to a nearby castle with its drawbridge raised. "COULD SOMEONE OPEN THE DRAWBRIDGE?" he yells. "I FORGOT THE MOAT CONTROL."

That really made me chuckle. Inside the card announces "Some things never change." Alex and Katherine signed it, and drew some little hearts. What could be better than that?

6 comments:

My parents have a really quirky sense of humor, so one year, for Mother's Day, I found a card in a grocery store near Asheville, NC that was in a section titled "Like a Mother"--I kid you not. There were all these cards that you could send to someone on Mother's Day who was not your mother but maybe served in that role, somehow. So I sent my mother a card that said something to the effect of "thank you so much for being just *like* a mother to me." We laughed and laughed.

Now, if only they made card for mediocre 1950s era dads like mine -- you know, the kind of dad who financially supports the family and then checks out of the rest. There must be a huge market of baby boomers who need those cards, too, so where are they????

Btw, who made that card? I want to buy it for my dad for next year, because even though it's not entirely appropriate for *him*, it works coming from me. And it's not icky sentimental "best dad ever" glurge.